El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents arrested a group of migrants locked inside a tractor-trailer rig at an interior immigration checkpoint on Highway 86. The human smuggler locked the 12 migrants in the trailer with no air circulation or means of escape.
Agents assigned to the Highway 86 Immigration Checkpoint on Tuesday observed a grey 2007 Freightliner tractor-trailer rig approaching for inspection. During an initial interview with the driver, a K-9 alerted to an odor it is trained to detect coming from the trailer cargo area, according to information obtained from El Centro Sector Border Patrol officials.
The agents referred the driver, a Mexican national illegally present in the U.S., to a secondary inspection station. The agents searched the locked trailer and found 12 illegal immigrants. Officials said the 12 were locked inside with no safety restraints and no means to extricate themselves in the event of a crash or abandonment by human smugglers.
The agents removed the ten adult men and two adult women from the trailer and conducted welfare checks.
Officials identified the alleged human smuggler as a 36-year-old from Mexico. He will be charged under 8 USC 1324 — Alien Smuggling.
Under Title 42 Coronavirus protection protocols put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the twelve migrants were quickly expelled to Mexico.
“This incident is the seventh of its kind this year in the Imperial Valley and the second this month,” El Centro Sector officials said in a written statement. “On the first week of May, El Centro Sector agents discovered six smuggled immigrants in a hydraulic dump trailer hauled by a semi-truck.”
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.